


Snow in the City

by Sorcyress



Category: Melendy Quartet - Elizabeth Enright
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorcyress/pseuds/Sorcyress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a grey city, Randy hopes for snow</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow in the City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [willowbough](https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowbough/gifts).



Snow in the City  
A Melendy Fic

It had all seemed so glamorous to Randy, when she had first gone. Here she was, off on a real grown-up adventure of her own, finally catching up with Rush and Mona and Mark. She felt so sophisticated when she told her friends --oh yes, I'm going to a dance academy in New York, isn't that so lovely? They all had squealed and promised to write, and so September had been glorious, the train ride taking her to a new life.

But the city was colder than Randy had remembered, and more grey. The cement and steel obscured any hope of green, and she found herself longing for the cupola of the Four-Story Mistake, and the landscapes it offered. Worst of all, she decided, as she stared glumly out the window at the fire escape across the way, was that it was two weeks into December, and there hadn't been a single flake of snow.

(Of course, in October she had decided worst of all was not being able to watch the leaves turn copper and gold, and in November the lack of fallen foliage to crunch through. Randy wasn't particularly bothered about this, it simply fell into a long list of reasons why she could never love the city, and why she would be certain to retire to a nice country house at the soonest possible moment. How she expected to do this while traveling around the globe as a ballerina remained a mystery.)

Even worse than not having snow were the letters from Oliver, which arrived every other week, and said that he did have snow, practically heaps of it, and had since mid-November. He regaled her with tales of playing with the dogs and making tunnels and snow-forts, and even included blueprints for an igloo he wanted to build. The last had managed to earn at least a fleeting smile from Randy, though the scale and finesse of his plans had improved, Oliver's hope to build such a dwelling ("and sneak outside to sleep in it!" he would say, when Cuffy was not near") had hardly diminished.

"Not since we were kids, anyways." Randy murmured aloud as she set down the letter, causing her roommate to give her a puzzled glance.

"Oh, my brother wants to make an igloo. Says he's found an even better way to make ice blocks than last year --it would have to be, last year he accidentally created an ice patch that covered the entire front walk for a week."

Maria laughed, and walked over, sitting next to Randy on the bed. "My eldest sister always dreamed of that too." she offered, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Of course, in Baltimore, we hardly ever get more than a few inches of snow. Not even enough for snowball fights, let alone igloos."

"Oh, you have to visit the Four-Story Mistake," sighed Randy, a familiar refrain. "We get feet of snow, and it lasts all winter --enough for sledding, or skiing, or even sleigh-rides some years!"

Maria and she had become fast friends when they were assigned to room together at the academy, aided in no small part by each being the youngest girl of their family, with all that meant to look up to. Maria had no brothers though, and so found them perpetually intriguing --especially Rush, a fact Randy found to be inexplicable.

"It sounds lovely!" Maria laughed. "Come now, though. You'll just make yourself homesick if you keep talking like that, and it would be a terrible thing to be homesick when we're only here for another ten days. Shall we go for a walk and look for Christmas presents?"

Randy nodded her agreement, and the two moved in a flurry, getting coats and scarves and gloves. Soon enough they were out on the busy streets, and in the hustle of the pre-Christmas crowd, Randy found herself forgetting entirely her irritation with the city's uncooperative skies. There were Christmas trees everywhere, put up in shop windows and little squares, and the two girls spent some time arguing merrily about which decorations were the prettiest. The rest of the day flew by, and when they returned to their dormitory, it was each with a heavier load --though lighter wallets.

"You must though." wrote Randy that night, ignoring how silly it was to write Oliver a letter when she would see him so soon. "Not let the igloo be destroyed until I've come home. I'm pining for any glimpse of white --I always feel so lonely when it is cold without snow, don't you?"

She signed her name with several practised flourishes (Randy wasn't sure if ballerinas gave out autographs, but she wanted to be prepared if they did), and went to bed.

***

It was a full week later, another gloomy Tuesday and still the ground was bare. Randy had become quite determined that it was never going to snow, not ever, and by the time she reached the Four-Story Mistake, it would have all melted there as well. Maria had wisely responded by spending much of her time in the library, leaving Randy to mope at the windows in peace.

As if to punish them for the unenjoyable weather, all the teachers had assigned simply unreasonable final examinations, pages of dull french nouns, or great historical dancers. This wouldn't anybody's mood, and as Randy trudged back towards her room after a particularly difficult essay question about the great ballet troupes of the seventeenth century, she found herself blinking back tears. She was quite set to enjoy a thorough crying session in the peace of her room, but when she reached the door, she found a folded blue envelope tied to the doorknob with ribbon.

The blue brought back memories of clues and adventure, and it was with shaking hands Randy detached the envelope and opened the card. Inside, in curling script that could belong to no one else other than beloved Mrs. Oliphant, were three lines, each more cryptic than the last.

 _"Come to the park.  
Bring your gloves.  
Don't be lonely."_

Randy hurried into the room to set down her bag, and find the pair of cherry-red gloves Mona had bought her last Christmas. Maria was nowhere to be seen, which Randy reflected was one of the problems with being petulant --when you finally had something excited to share, everyone would still be somewhere else, under the assumption you were continuing to be a pill.

The park was not a far walk, only three blocks, and Randy took them at a half-jog. Mrs. Oliphant had visited several times during the semester, on trips into the city to see her lady-friends, but she hadn't ever left notes. And why on earth would she specifically tell Randy to bring her gloves? It was certainly cold outside, but not enough that any particular accessory seemed necessary.

Mrs. Oliphant greeted her with a warm hug as Randy reached the entrance of the park, and bundled her across the dying grass. A few yards away were standing Oliver and Father, with Maria sitting gleefully on one of the Melendy's steamer trunks.

"Oh!" Randy exclaimed, her spirits lifting immeasurably. "But you're not to come get me for three more days."

"Ah, well, I'm just here to go get some Christmas shopping done. Oliver's your real visitor." Father said with a smile, wrapping her in a hug. Randy buried her face in his chest, breathing in the warm smells of soap and pipe tobacco, and would've been utterly content to stay that way forever if she hadn't heard the click of the trunk lock, and the creak of the lid.

Oliver smirked. "I wanted to bring you this." Wham! Right into her shoulder, exploding in a poof of powder and ice went a snowball, causing Randy to shriek delightedly.

The steamer trunk had been entirely filled with fresh white snow, just the perfect consistency for making snowballs with. Randy dived into it, grabbing great scoops and flinging them at Oliver and Maria, who responded entirely in turn. The grass around them turned white as snowball after snowball was launched, created first from the contents of the trunk, and then by scooping up the remains of other snowballs from the ground.

The fight lasted most of an hour, (true to his word, Father and Mrs. Oliphant had retired after a few minutes to go buy mysterious packages not to be opened until Christmas.) and by the end, all three were coated head to toe, and laughing so hard it was difficult to breath. As a last defiance, Randy flopped backwards onto the ground, waving her arms and legs to make a snow angel in the wan layer.

"Thank you." she panted, pulling herself up to her knees. "You can't know how badly I wanted that."

Oliver blushed and waved away her praise, but Maria immediately launched into an explanation --she had sent Oliver a letter, apparently, begging him to do this, and he had quickly replied with a plan. Randy hugged both of them over and over, and they all ignored the curious looks of passerby, who wondered how on earth three young people could have had a snowfight without any snow. Finally, Father and Mrs. Oliphant came back, and they and Oliver picked up the poor half-sodden trunk, to head back towards the train station.

"Thank you, so much." she sighed happily, waving her family off. "I'll see you on Friday?"

"On Friday." promised Father.

"And we'll have another fight then, a real one!" swore Oliver excitedly. "I've made a real good fort right by the iron deer, you'll be so jealous."

"Well you can't hog it all to yourself! What will we do when Rush and Mona come back, hm?"

"Well okay, maybe we can share. But until they come home it's all mine!" and with that they were gone, walking across the park.

Randy waved until she couldn't see them, then took Maria's hand, and the two began to amble back towards their own temporary home. "Thank you" Randy sighed again, and Maria laughed.

"It was fun. I'd love to get a chance to do that ag-oh!" Her words were cut short as they stopped suddenly, right outside the front door of school.

Another snowflake fluttered down, and landed on Randy's glove, followed by another, and another. Face turned to the sky, Randy laughed, and after a moment, Maria joined in, both laughing and laughing as the flakes fell heavier around them.

***

And the next day, when every bit of decorative moulding on every building was capped with white, Randy decided that the city was the most glamorous place she'd ever been, and the best thing of all was when it was coated in snow.


End file.
